In this current series of paintings, Paul Cummings seeks to subvert the traditional notions of the British Lanscape by his critique of the British class system in relation to its social economy. In essence, the work describes an anecdotal, conscious anthropology, which comment upon the irony of the income scale structure, through procedural bracketing of property.  The value of which predetermines the habitation of our failed utopias. To compound his theory, the paintings demonstrate the pervasive infrastructure that is a constant reminder of the inescapable dependency of the system we are assimilated into.

The methodology practiced in these paintings allows for a certain amount of manipulation, thus creating a new reality and not just a faithful rendering of a photograph. The intention within this series of paintings is to go further than ‘hyper-realism’ and thus create a new definition of  ‘virtual realism’, which can be explained as a digital virtual landscape or a re-simulated reality. “Road Side” exemplifies this succinctly, as it purely digital in its origins. The paintings vacillate disconcertingly between the neurosis of the banal and the perfected gloss of a virtual ideal.  This body of work is relevant to the critical theories of Jean Baudrillard particularly his essays on ‘simulacra.’ 

Sublime light and atmosphere suffuses a rarefying effect onto these mundane scenes, stimulating emotive sensibilities. This rendering temporarily holds back a nervous condition to some extent, but is no cure. Humor is also a way out of the melancholic situation, by finding the failings and idiosyncrasies of everyday environments and situation. The scale of the paintings allows the viewer to enter the landscape only to be confounded by its virtual surface that is not like a painting at all. 

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